The Minerva is a grade 6 Uncommon Romulan Explorer that unlocks at Shipyard level 63. It is built for speed and survival in hazardous space: a Radiation Resistance ability, a cloak, and an out-of-combat self-repair make it a deep-space runner and a cloak-and-strike raider rather than a front-line armada hull. For an Uncommon ship it hits hard once refitted, and it earns its slot if you spend time in radiation-heavy systems.
How to get the Minerva
Building the Minerva takes 150 blueprints and a Shipyard at level 63. Once you have both, the build cost is 364 Σ-Dilithium, 43,400 Σ-Tritanium, and 2,648 6★ Common Refined Gas, and the build runs for 9 days. The game data lists the requirement and the cost but not where the blueprints come from, so check what is currently offering Minerva blueprints in game before you commit to the grind.
Minerva ability
The Minerva’s always-active ship ability is Radiation Resistance. It raises the ship’s radiation resistance by 15% at level 1 and climbs to 150% at level 75. Radiation resistance lowers the damage your ship takes from radiation in the systems that carry it, so the higher it sits, the longer the Minerva can work deep-space regions before it needs repairs. Ship abilities like this stay on at all times with no activation.
Minerva active ability
The Minerva also has two player-triggered actions, each unlocked through a refit. Ship Cloaking hides the ship until the cloak’s duration runs out, you enter combat, start mining, or dock at a station. Field Repairs, used out of combat while undocked, instantly restores 25% of the ship’s hull health. Cloaking lets you reposition or slip past hostiles unseen, and Field Repairs saves a trip back to station after a rough fight. Both run on a cooldown that shortens as the ship tiers up.
Stats and tiers
Base values from the current game data; research, buffs, and officers raise them in play. The table shows three anchor tiers.
| Tier | Warp (speed / range) | Impulse | Cargo (protected) | Shield HP | Hull HP | Health (displayed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7.3 / 1,100 | 100 | 13,000 (650) | 12,369,267 | 11,009,692 | 11,689,479 |
| 8 | 8.0 / 1,280 | 100 | 20,400 (985) | 21,957,459 | 19,068,432 | 20,512,945 |
| 15 | 8.7 / 1,420 | 100 | 63,800 (3,120) | 43,371,726 | 38,988,369 | 41,180,047 |
Health (displayed) is the shield and hull average the game shows on the ship card. Power, Attack, and Defense totals are not in the ship data, so this guide does not quote them.
Weapons and firing pattern
Warm-up is the round a weapon first fires; cool-down is how many rounds pass between shots after that. These are the three weapons at max tier 15.
| Weapon | Type | Shots | Warm-up | Cool-down | Damage | Crit chance | Crit damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Energy | 2 | 1 | 2 | 772,466–927,021 | 10% | 150% |
| 2 | Energy | 2 | 1 | 2 | 772,466–927,021 | 10% | 150% |
| 3 | Energy | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3,208,901–3,850,674 | 10% | 150% |
All three weapons are energy. Weapon 3 is the heavy hitter, with roughly four times the damage of the other two, but a longer three-round cool-down, so the Minerva leans on its two faster guns between the big shots.
Crew slots and officer bonus
The Minerva opens officer slots as it levels up.
| Ship level | Officer slots |
|---|---|
| 5 | 1 |
| 10 | 2 |
| 20 | 3 |
| 35 | 4 |
| 55 | 5 |
| 65 | 6 |
| 70 | 7 |
The Minerva also boosts the officers you seat on it. Its attack, defense, and health bonuses are identical, and they step up the ladder below as you invest in the ship.
| Amount | Bonus |
|---|---|
| 16,000 | 300% |
| 32,000 | 600% |
| 52,000 | 900% |
| 72,000 | 1,200% |
| 96,000 | 1,500% |
| 128,000 | 1,800% |
| 176,000 | 2,100% |
| 240,000 | 2,400% |
| 320,000 | 2,700% |
| 480,000 | 3,000% |
Minerva refits
Refits are unlocked with shards and change how the ship performs. The Minerva has three.
| Refit | What it does |
|---|---|
| Minerva Gold Refit | Increases the Minerva’s base hazard resistance by 50%. Costs 60 shards to unlock. |
| Minerva Cloaking | Enables cloaking for the Minerva and increases base weapon damage by 550%. Costs 60 shards to unlock. |
| Field Repairs (Minerva) | Unlocks the Field Repairs active ability, which repairs 25% of the ship’s hull health out of combat while undocked. Costs 120 shards to unlock. |
The Cloaking refit is the one that changes the ship the most: it turns on the cloak and lifts base weapon damage by a large margin, which is what makes the Minerva a real threat rather than a pure scout.
Crew for the Minerva
An Explorer with a cloak and a strong single heavy weapon wants a bridge that raises weapon damage and keeps the hull alive long enough to trade, so lean on officers that boost energy weapon damage, critical hits, or shield and hull mitigation. If you fly it mostly through radiation space, weight the crew toward survivability so the Radiation Resistance ability and the officers pull in the same direction. Crews shift with the meta, so check our Officer Tier List for the current best picks before you settle a bridge.
The Minerva in Star Trek
The Minerva is a game-original Romulan design, not a ship from any Star Trek film or series, so its story comes from the game rather than screen canon. The name fits Romulan tradition, which borrows from Roman culture the way Romulus, Remus, and the Senate do; Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom and war. In the game’s telling, the Romulan Ministry of Science built the Minerva after years of work and heavy funding from the Star Empire, giving it a Sigma Dilithium warp core fast enough for Warp 9.95. The Empire uses it for forward reconnaissance and deep-space exploration along the neutral zone.
Is the Minerva worth it?
The Minerva sits at the high end of the grade 6 band and asks a lot up front: Shipyard 63, 150 blueprints, and a nine-day build. For that you get a fast Romulan Explorer with a cloak, a heavy energy weapon after the Cloaking refit, and real staying power in radiation-heavy systems. It is Uncommon, so it will not out-muscle top epic hulls in open combat, but as a travel and hit-and-run ship for players deep into the shipyard levels it holds up well. Chase it if you spend real time in hazardous space or want a cloaking Romulan runner.